Broncos & NFL

Broncos linebacker Brandon Marshall ready to make his first NFL start

Brandon Marshall (54) runs through drills with the rest of the linebackers. The Denver Broncos practice at Dove Valley on Monday, Sept. 1, 2014 in preparation for their season opener against the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday night. (Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post)

There was one half-serious regular-season game remaining for the Broncos to play in 2013 when the conversation turned to, of all people, linebacker Brandon Marshall.

This was a player who had yet to make an NFL tackle on defense. Peyton Manning had an NFL season passing yardage record to break, yet the Denver players couldn't stop raving about Marshall. Not the defensive players, mind you. It was the side of the ball Adam Gase coaches and Manning operates.

"Our offensive players loved him," Broncos coach John Fox said of Marshall. "He was running around on the practice squad last year, and I finally said to the guys, 'Hey, we can't block this dude.' He's on scout team wrecking our offense.

"In Oakland, I've got offensive players — I won't mention names — chirping at me to get him into the game. That's what happens. They go against these guys every day. So some of these young guys make an impression. And players know players."

It was no ordinary journey that brought Marshall to what will be his first NFL start as the Broncos' weakside linebacker Sunday night against the Indianapolis Colts.

From a "tubby kid" who blocked for a skinny running back named Quinton Carter with the Pop Warner Wolverines while growing up in Las Vegas, to a tweener college prospect who decommitted from Colorado State because he had a prescient feeling about coach Sonny Lubick's job security, to a young NFL player who was cut twice by the woebegone Jacksonville Jaguars, to a Broncos practice-squad player through the first 16 weeks of the 17-week 2013 season, Marshall has finally made it.

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He is starting Denver's season opener because Danny Trevathan suffered a fractured leg three weeks ago in practice. But Marshall was in position as the next man up because of his week-in and week-out performance on the Broncos' practice squad last year.

Let that be a lesson, Shaquil Barrett.

"At first it was sort of surreal how things went down," Marshall said. "There was a time during the Philadelphia Eagles game. I was on the sidelines in my jump suit and Coach Fox comes up to me and says, 'Keep working. You're going to get your opportunity.'

Brandon Marshall (54) runs through drills with the rest of the linebackers. The Denver Broncos practice at Dove Valley on Monday, Sept. 1, 2014 in preparation for their season opener against the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday night. (Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post)

"I thought that was big, because I'm a practice-squad player and he has a game to coach. That he took the time to give me some encouragement — that stood out to me. That kept my hope alive."

The Denver players on the field went up 52-13 on the Eagles. They didn't need Fox anymore. He turned and found somebody else to coach.

CSU loses out

Las Vegas has placed 5-1 odds on Denver winning the Super Bowl this season, and could have made its native son a far greater underdog of ever playing for the team.

After Marshall's parents separated, Dad didn't handled it well. For a time, Barbara Marshall had to take Brandon and his older brother Marcus to a Las Vegas shelter to hide from her abusive ex-husband.

"I've known him since we were knee high and watched him overcome all kinds of adversity from family and personal to sports his entire life," Carter said. "That he made it to where he is today doesn't surprise me. The kind of guy he is, he's going hard on every play. If the guy on the other side isn't going hard on a play, he'll be exposed."

In high school, Marshall played tight end, running back and linebacker. He received only two college offers, and hometown UNLV wasn't one. A coach there said Marshall wasn't a tight end or a running back or a linebacker.

Lubick, however, saw an athlete. And for a while, he had Marshall coming to Fort Collins.

"Sonny's a great guy," Marshall said. "He's the reason I committed there. But I felt like he wasn't going to be there long, and I decommitted. My feeling was right."

Marshall enrolled at Nevada and, after his redshirt freshman year, Lubick was fired at CSU. Marshall wound up being a four-year starter for the Wolf Pack, and he played well enough to become a fifth-round draft pick of the Jaguars.

But two coaching changes in two years put Marshall on the NFL waiver wire twice during that time.

The Broncos rescued him about this time last year by signing him to their practice squad. Marshall took it from there.

"He's come a long, long way, but Brandon always had a little swag about him," said Broncos tight end Virgil Green, who was one year ahead of Marshall at Nevada. "He never really looked wide-eyed. Even his freshman year, we had a pretty good linebacker corps at Nevada and he always found a way to make plays and get things done."

In that game at Oakland to end the 2013 regular season? Late in the fourth quarter of the Broncos' blowout win, Marshall went in and chased down Rashad Jennings for his first NFL tackle.

More tackles are expected Sunday against the Colts.

"It's obviously an opportunity to establish myself in the league," Marshall said. "People can see me starting. If I can establish myself as a starting linebacker, then I should get a lot of years out of the NFL."

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